


Always Prepared

by JoMouse



Series: Tumblr Prompts [28]
Category: One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Boys Kissing, Dorms, M/M, Meet-Cute, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-17 02:38:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9300392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoMouse/pseuds/JoMouse
Summary: Zayn wakes up to an empty dormitory due to inclement weather. Well, analmostempty dormitory.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings and salutations!
> 
> This was inspired by this prompt: The last two people on campus during an extreme weather alert and oh great we’re snowed in. Ziam please.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> xx-Joey
> 
> Don't know 'em. Don't own 'em. Don't show 'em.

Zayn stretched, groaning as he heard his neighbor’s alarm blaring through the extremely thin wall that separated their dormitory rooms. He banged on the wall a couple of times, hoping to hear Niall’s brash voice curse him out before turning off the alarm, allowing Zayn a few more hours of sleep. It was Friday, no classes at all and no work until much later in the day. Pulling his pillow over his head, he started cursing out his friend in every language he knew.

After that had killed about ten minutes, the alarm still blaring, Zayn threw his covers off and reached for his phone, wondering if Niall had run downstairs for coffee, forgetting about his alarm again. He was surprised to see his phone was dead since it was plugged into the wall.  Finally taking in his surroundings, he realized the only light was coming from the window. The power was out. He also realized the room was a bit chilly.

_ Of course, Niall would have a battery operated alarm. _ Slipping out of the bed, Zayn decided to go look for his neighbor. Worst case scenario, he didn’t find him, but he had a strong cup of coffee and a bit of an escape from the noise.

Unless the power went out before the coffee was made. If that were the case, the worst case scenario would be dire.

Zayn pulled on a shirt and a jumper, making sure his lighter and cigarettes were in the pocket. Then he grabbed his wallet, sliding them into a pocket of his joggers. Lastly, before leaving the room, he shoved a beanie over his unruly hair, not caring that he was only in socks. As he made his way to the stairwell, he thanked the heavens above that he only lived on the third floor. He was surprised by how quiet the building was as he descended, used to the sound of voices echoing in the stairwell.

As he exited at the basement door, he was surprised to find the closed door of the cafeteria. His eyes glossed over the sign taped to the door: _University_ _Closed Due to Inclement Weather. Will Re-Open Monday._

Zayn vaguely remembered it beginning to snow as he and Louis had walked home from their morning classes the day before. He’d been feeling a bit under the weather and decided to skip his afternoon classes and go to bed. Now he was wondering just how much he had slept through, especially when his stomach gave a small growl of hunger. If the cafeteria was closed, maybe he could purchase something at the front desk where they kept a small assortment of snacks. 

Climbing one flight of stairs, he stepped into the building lobby, surprised to see even the front desk closed down and the Dorm Director’s office shut. He looked around trying to find a clock that didn’t run on electricity, but apparently, they all did and, according to the analog clock by the front desk, the power had gone out at around ten. Zayn wasn’t sure if it was a.m. or p.m.

He turned towards the door, surprised to see another person standing there, looking outside with a phone pressed to his ear. “I don’t know, mum. I was up all night working on a paper with my headphones on - the noise canceling ones you and dad got me - and fell asleep at my desk. I didn’t even know they were calling an emergency,” the boy said, his voice slightly panicked. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck as he listened to the person on the other end. “I can’t get out. There’s no power and I can’t even open the doors.”

Zayn’s eyes widened as he glanced outside and realized the boy was correct. There was snow halfway up the doors. It must have fallen hard and fast overnight. He wondered why his friends didn’t try and wake him up. He was about to go check Louis’ room when the boy turned, blinking at Zayn in surprise.

“H-hi,” he stuttered out. “Not you mum. There’s actually someone else here.” He rolled his eyes. “Yes, mum.” His lips quirked in a smile that Zayn found slightly adorable. “Of course, mum. Love you, too.” He hung up the phone and shoved it in his pocket.

“Hi,” Zayn said. “Er...what time is it?” 

The boy pulled his phone out and glanced at it. “Nearly nine.”

“A.M.?” Zayn asked, smacking himself in the forehead when the boy looked outside at the sun shining brightly against the snow. “Dumb question. Sorry. Was sleeping.”

“S’alright, mate.” He held a hand out. “Liam Payne. Basement.”

Zayn chuckled as he took the offered hand. “Zayn Malik. Third floor.”

“Nice to meet you. Want some coffee?” Liam asked, his smile wide as he turned to head towards the stairs.

“Um. Sure?” He followed Liam down the stairs, thinking this is how some horror movies began. He knew people lived in the basement, had even done it himself last year, but he hadn’t met anyone this term who did.

Liam entered the Resident Advisor’s room, stopping Zayn in his tracks. “You’re the RA?”

Liam shrugged. “Easy gig. Only four people live on this floor.” Zayn chuckled as he entered, surprised by the smell of coffee that filled the dark room. He glanced at the window and could barely see the top of the snow line just below the top of the window. There had to be at least five feet of snow out there. He turned to Liam to comment and was greeted by a full cup of the best smelling coffee he’d ever encountered.

“Milk or-” He cut off as Zayn took a hearty sip. “Never mind.”

“How?” The bitter liquid burned his tongue, but he didn't care, loving the way the heat flowed into his body.  He could practically feel it running through his veins. 

“Battery operated, but, er, don’t tell anyone about it, yeah? Kind of forbidden and all.” Liam looked nervous, making Zayn’s smile widen. This boy was incredibly adorable. “In fact, if you could keep anything you see in here today-”

“You saved me with coffee. You could tell me you murdered the Dorm Director and I’d gladly be an accessory to the crime,” Zayn said, laughing. He stopped when Liam opened his window. “Uh-” Liam turned towards him, a carton of milk in his hands. “What?”

“Didn’t want the food in my fridge spoiling, so I dug a hole in the snow,” Liam explained before adding some milk to his coffee and returning it to the hole in the snow and shutting the window.

“It’s also where I got the water for the coffee,” Liam explained. “Figured the boiling made it safe to drink and it appeared rather clean.” He glanced down at his phone and frowned before opening a drawer and pulling out a keychain charger. He plugged his phone in smiling.

“You wouldn’t happen to have another of those would you?” Zayn asked moving closer and reaching for the drawer. He pulled it open, surprised to find several of the items in there. “Are they all charged?”

Liam nodded, running his fingers over them and handing one to Zayn, tapping the Batman logo. “This is my favourite, so you better return it.”

“Sick,” Zayn responded as he glanced around the room, laughing when Liam opened the drawer again and pulled out a charging cord. Zayn blushed as he plugged it in. “You must think I’m completely helpless.”

Liam laughed. “Nah. I’m just glad you haven’t teased me about being overly prepared.” He shrugged as he moved to his closet and pulled out a battery operated lantern, turning it on to cast a dim light through the room. “Used to be a boy scout.”

“I thought about doing that, but the idea of sleeping in the woods made me change my mind,” Zayn explained as he poked around Liam’s room, checking occasionally to see if the boy minded, but he was busy in his closet again, moving things around. Zayn was looking at a fire safety textbook on the desk when he realized that his feet were getting cold, even through the socks.

“Thanks for the coffee, mate. I’m gonna head bac-”

“Please don’t,” Liam cut him off, biting into his lower lip as soon as the words escaped.

“I’m getting cold,” Zayn admitted pointing to his feet.

“I’ve got extra socks.” He looked down at Zayn’s feet. “My slippers will probably fit you.” Liam started digging through his closet again. “I’ve got extra blankets. We could set up a blanket fort and try to hold in some heat.” Liam was pulling out more blankets than Zayn thought his mum had in their entire house back in Bradford. He kept talking the entire time, the words muffled and indecipherable, but the boy was definitely babbling.

Zayn reached forward and touched Liam on the shoulder making him jump. A thought suddenly occurred to him. “Do you not want to be alone?”

Liam chewed on his lip before shaking his head. “Out of everything - waking up in a pitch black room, not having power, the cold - being alone is the one thing I couldn’t prepare for.” Liam fiddled with his hands until Zayn laid his overtop, stilling them. “I searched all the floors, but the only sound I heard was Niall’s alarm. I banged on his door, but he didn’t answer. Was beginning to think it was an apocalypse or something.” His head fell. “Then I came back here and saw all of the texts from people saying they were leaving. I never check my phone when doing homework.”

“And I sleep like the dead, except for Niall’s alarm, and my phone died overnight.” He glanced over at it, glad to see it had enough power to turn back on. He swiped to his text messages, laughing at the massive amount of texts from Louis trying to get him out of bed so they could get off campus and to his mum’s a half-hour away before the roads closed. “Oops,” Zayn said, showing the messages to Liam, glad to see him relax into a smile.

Zayn was checking the weather on his phone, groaning when it was calling for more snow. He also checked the University website to see that it had been officially closed until Monday, no classes or services, which meant they were pretty much stuck, and Zayn had the weekend off from the library. “Looks like we’ll be living off snow coffee for the next few days. Hope you have a lot.” Zayn shook his head. “Hope Niall’s alarm battery dies soon, as well.” He didn’t know how long they would be stuck there, but he was figuring at some point, he’d annoy Liam enough that the boy would prefer solitude to his useless arse. “I might have a couple of candy bars in my room.” He groaned as he remembered the food he'd brought back from home the previous weekend. “Do you think I could bring my mum’s leftovers down to your makeshift fridge?” He really didn’t want all that home cooking to go to waste.

“Yeah. Anything we can eat cold?” Zayn shrugged. Might not be the best way, but cold was better than nothing. “Alright, let’s go. Maybe we can grab some more blankets from your room as well.”

Zayn’s eyes fell on the fire safety book again. “Wait, Heat rises, yeah?” 

“Yeah.” Liam stopped locking up his room, tilting his head in thought. “So, it’s probably warmer in your room.”

“And probably warmest in the rec room on the top floor. Middle of the building. No windows to let in cold,” Zayn said, getting excited at the idea, but then his face fell. “Except it’s kept locked unless you sign out a key from behind the front desk.”

“I have a master key,” Liam said off-handedly as he began gathering the blankets and stuffing clothes and pillows into a massive duffle bag.

“What?” Zayn asked. 

“What, what?” Liam looked around like he was debating what else to grab.

“A master key that can open any door in the building?” Zayn asked, staring at Liam, hoping that he would get where he was going with this train of thought. Liam blinked at him blankly. “Including the cafeteria?” Liam’s eyes lit up. 

“Where they have food and gas stoves!” Liam’s smile was so bright that Zayn couldn’t stop himself from returning it, sure the boy didn’t even see it with as much as his eyes scrunched shut. “I have a lighter - we’ll need that.” Liam started digging through his desk again coming up with a long-necked lighter, making Zayn laugh. “What?”

“Not the type of lighter I was expecting.” Zayn dug around his jumper pocket, withdrawing his Zippo. “Yours is probably safer for lighting a stove, though. Good Boy Scout.” Liam flushed a bit at the compliment, making Zayn’s smile soften a bit, glad the boy didn't take his words as teasing. 

They moved quickly to get the stuff from Liam’s room up to the rec room before returning to Zayn’s room for the food and all of his blankets and extra jumpers and socks. Leaving the linens and clothing in the stairwell, after all, there was no one else to steal it, they headed down to the cafeteria. Once Liam unlocked the door, Zayn heard a strange humming sound. 

“Generators!” Liam shouted as he pushed past him towards one of the walk-in refrigerators, pulling the door open with a flourish. “It’s cold!” He reached a hand in before stilling.

“What?” Zayn asked as he pushed his way past Liam to reach for a carton of orange juice.

“This is stealing,” Liam said, chewing his lower lip.

Zayn started to laugh but realized that Liam was truly bothered by the idea. He thought for a moment and then went over to the wall where a clipboard was hung up. He pulled it down, flipping through the pages until he found a blank one. He grabbed the pen attached to the top and looked at Liam. “We’ll make a list of everything we use. Then when school starts again, they can charge our school accounts.” 

Liam smiled and nodded, grabbing the orange juice Zayn had been reaching for and then looked around for glasses. Digging around some more, they found enough to make a decent fry up on the gas stove, supplementing it with some of the food Zayn’s mum had sent. They shared it standing up in the kitchen, where there was a bit of warmth coming from the stove still. When they were done, they washed up quickly, returning everything to their rightful places and storing Zayn’s leftovers in one of the refrigerators. They debated taking the list with them but opted to leave it where it was because they would probably be back for something else before the weekend was over. 

They grabbed the stuff from the stairwell and made their way into the rec room, relieved to feel that it was actually almost toasty inside. As Liam quickly shut the door, Zayn started grabbing chairs, pulling them toward the center of the room and setting them in a bit of a circle. He looked over at Liam who was watching him, a calculating look in his eye.

“What?” Zayn asked.

Liam blinked at him, confusion clear on his face. “What, what?”

“You’re staring,” Zayn supplied, smiling a bit when Liam’s cheeks flushed. He wasn’t sure, but making Liam blush could possibly become his favourite pastime.

“Was trying to figure out the best way to do this,” Liam admitted. “We need it to be cozy, but I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.” The comment was strange, but Zayn shrugged it off as Liam grabbed one of the larger blankets from his room and began draping it over the chair backs.

“Maybe we should build the inner nest first,” Zayn suggested. “Then worry about the covering.” He removed the blanket that Liam had added and began grabbing some of the thicker blankets. He laid them between the chairs, surrounding them with pillows. It wasn’t long before he realized that Liam was still standing frozen, watching him. “Or I could do all the wor-”

“I’m gay,” Liam blurted out, his entire face red when Zayn quirked an eyebrow at him. “I just wanted to tell you because we’re going to be pretty squished in there and if you have a problem with it, I didn’t want you to think that I was doing this to hit on you or anything like that because you are super attractive and if I’d seen you before this, I probably would’ve tried to ask you out, but now this seems like the worst possible time to even consider it and I should really sto-”

While Liam kept babbling, his eyes wild, almost as if he was unable to stop himself, Zayn rose to stand in front of him, pressing their lips together to cut him off. Liam suddenly stopped talking but didn't respond to the kiss. Zayn took a step back, his face heating up, certain he'd just ruined the tentative bond they had been forming.

Once the silence stretched on, neither of them moving, Zayn opened his mouth and let his words starts flowing. “Okay, first, I’m gay, too. Second, you’re really fit and basically my hero right now, so I’m not really worried about a cuddle in a pillow fort with you. It might not be the most commonplace first date, but, if we survive this weekend, we can make it up on our second date.” He stepped away and began working on the fort again, afraid of what Liam’s response might be to his verbal vomit.

Suddenly, a pillow smacked Zayn in the side of the head and he looked up at a giggling Liam. “Oh, it’s on!” Zayn shouted, scrambling over one of the chairs to try to get to the pile of pillows at Liam’s feet.

Several minutes and one exploded pillow later, the two of them were sprawled over the blankets between the chairs, sweating, laughing, and sputtering out mouthfuls of feathers. “Now, I’m too hot,” Liam whined, but he was laughing so hard, Zayn couldn't take him seriously.

“Yes, yes you are,” he quipped, the flirtatious words escaping before he could second-guess himself, but he felt terrible when Liam’s laughter cut off suddenly. Zayn struggled to find words to apologize when suddenly, Liam rolled and was looming above him, his face close enough that the tips of their noses brushed. 

“You’re one to talk about being too hot,” Liam said, smiling, his tongue sneaking out to sweep across his lower lip, making Zayn swallow a groan.

“Well, c’mon then,” Zayn taunted, not sure if he was trying to scare Liam off or pull him in. Liam tilted his head slightly, brushing his lips across Zayn’s. “C’mon, you call that a kiss?”

Liam’s eyes sparkled as he leaned in, his lips pressing more firmly than before. Zayn tried to keep the smile off his lips, but couldn't do it, giving Liam the opportunity to slip his tongue past Zayn’s lips. 

The kiss continued until Zayn had to take a breath, he pulled back, keeping a fist locked in Liam’s jumper to be sure he knew he wasn't done. His action must have been misinterpreted in the best way because Liam sat up, straddling Zayn’s hips, to remove the article of clothing - and the tee beneath it - revealing abs that had Zayn swallowing hard as he ran his fingers over the ridges. 

Liam smiled as he reached for Zayn’s shirt, pulling it gently over his head before pushing him back against the blankets. His eyes traced over Zayn before he leaned down to press a kiss to the tattooed lips in the center of his chest. “Nice ink,” he said, his lips brushing against Zayn’s skin, warming him up anymore. Liam used the tip of his tongue to trace each feather on the wings spanning his chest causing Zayn’s breathing to become heavy. 

Liam continued worshiping every bit of ink on Zayn’s torso, torturing him in the best ways, his teeth nipping at the blocky heart just above his waistline. As he nosed against the gun tattooed on his side, Zayn uttered out, “Fuck me.”

Liam froze as Zayn slapped a hand over his mouth. “Shit. Fuck. I'm sorry!” he shouted against his own hand, trying to pull himself out from under Liam while not rubbing his hard cock against him. He only managed to move about an inch before Liam let his full weight drop down on him. He definitely wasn't the only one who had been getting into it. 

“Er,” Liam started looking down at Zayn who wanted to hide but couldn't seem to even close his eyes. Liam reached up to remove his hand, pressing a quick kiss to Zayn’s lips. “As much as that idea appeals to me, even if it's a bit sooner than I'm used to, I don't…” He trailed off, gesturing around the room as his face flushed. 

It took Zayn a minute to come back to himself enough to realize what Liam was saying. He wasn't saying no, but he was saying he didn't have anything and they certainly didn't know each other well enough to go bareback and definitely not masochistic enough to attempt this without lube. 

When Zayn still hadn't spoken for a full minute, Liam started to sit up, but Zayn wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, bringing him down into a gentle kiss. “So, if you had something, you would?” Liam nodded, mirroring the growing smile on Zayn’s face, although his eyes still held confusion. 

Zayn kissed Liam again while slapping a hand down on the blankets around them, jostling Liam and causing them both to laugh. Finally, he felt the familiar softness of his jumper and let out a shout of triumph. He pushed Liam up and back until their positions were reversed and Zayn was straddling his thighs, digging into the pocket of his shirt. Tossing aside his cigarettes and lighter, he finally pulled out his wallet.  Opening it, he withdrew two packets, showing them to Liam. 

“Thought you weren't a Boy Scout,” Liam teased, his hands already working Zayn’s joggers down his hips. 

Zayn popped the button on Liam’s jeans, biting into his lower lip. “Just because I wasn't a Boy Scout doesn't mean I'm not always prepared.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't kill me for leaving off there - you'll just have to let your imagination finish for you. ;)
> 
> Please feel free to come talk to me on Twitter or tumblr. I really love meeting new people!


End file.
